Crime Fiction (Best Defence series Book 5)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  The PF depute, a bored looking young woman with a lot of hair, sat across the table from me, fighting sleep. When her turn came, her most effective point in opposition would be to say that Starrs’ failure to appear had followed immediately upon the Crown disclosing the potentially damaging evidence of Clyve Cree, thus making him a flight-risk.

  I was ready for that. A flight-risk didn’t stay at home waiting to be arrested; he jumped on a ferry and headed for the continent. I sat down, keeping that comeback up my sleeve.

  The woman across the well of the court checked her papers, presumably instructions from Crown office, and barely raised her bottom off the chair. ‘The Crown is not opposing the bail application,’ she said.

  The Sheriff had the final say, but faced with only one side of an argument and no prospect of an appeal, granted the application. Mark Starrs was led away again until his bail papers were ready for signing. If the application had been unsuccessful, I would have taken the time to follow him to the cells to speak to him. Legal aid rates being what they were and with a lot of travel on one-half rates ahead of me, I made do with nipping into the café on the way out of court and telling his dad the good news.

  My other reason for not waiting to speak with my client was that he’d want to know what was going to happen next. How could I fail to mention my discovery that the witness the Crown was relying on to convict him was employed by his co-accused’s father? Before I revealed that, I wanted to speak to Fiona Faye and discuss how best to use the information. At the very least it would make for some pretty interesting cross-examination. The two brothers were still waiting outside the court building. The younger was standing, smoking. The older sat atop the big black waste bin, white trainers dangling. ‘What happened? Is Starrs getting out?’ he shouted at me.

  He wouldn’t want to hear that my client was about to hit the street, unless it was face first. I gave the pair of them a thin, non-committal smile on my way to the kerbside, where I waited for a break in the busy traffic.

  ‘Aye, you’d better fucking move,’ one of them called to me. He dropped down from the bin. ‘When he steps out of that door, ahm gonnae—’

  ‘You’re going to do nothing.’ Mark Starrs’ father exited the building. He closed in on the young men. ‘I’ve told you two before. I’m sorry about your sister, but my son had nothing to do with it - okay?’

  Nothing was perhaps taking it too far. It was generally agreed that at the very least his son had helped remove their sister’s dead body from Dominic Quirk’s accommodation and dump it in some bushes. That wasn’t nothing.

  The older and taller of the two brothers stood face to face with Starrs senior. ‘Your son is a dead man,’ he sneered. ‘Him and Quirk. I know people. That pair will not last a week in the jail. If I need to, I’ll get put inside and do the job myself.’

  ‘That right?’ Starrs’ tone was way too casual.

  I sensed what was coming. Unfortunately, the young track-suited man didn’t, not until it was too late and his nose was meeting the older man’s forehead with a squelch. He staggered back, hands clutched to his face, blood dripping between his fingers. Starrs strode after him, jabbed a finger in his bleeding face. ‘You touch him and you’ll be joining your sister in a ditch.’

  The younger boy stepped forward, angry, uncertain, scared to join in, too scared not to.

  I put a hand on his chest, keeping the boy at arm’s length. ‘Far enough,’ I said. I grabbed Starrs by the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Go to your car. I’ll bring Mark to you.’ I gave him a gentle push in the direction of the car park. The older boy was recovering from the initial shock of the blow, screaming revenge after Starrs and spitting blood but not, I noticed, going after Starrs senior. I gave him a hanky. He took it without a word of thanks and clamped it against his nose. It wasn’t hard to feel sorry for him. Would I have felt any different? His sister had been killed, her body dumped and over three months after the tragic event, no-one had been convicted and the two men, one of whom, at least, was guilty were both at liberty. Why shouldn’t he be seeking justice or, even better, revenge?

  Mark Starrs appeared in the doorway clutching a carrier bag of belongings and his bail papers. He looked from me to the bleeding youth. ‘Where’s my dad?’ he asked.

  By the time I’d dragged him off and we’d made it to the car park, my phone was buzzing. I sent my client off with promises of a meeting in the near future and took the call. It was Fiona.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Cupar. Mark Starrs is out on bail again.’

  ‘Good, ‘cos the deal is back on and Crowe wants to meet again. Your client cops a plea to attempting to defeat the ends of justice for helping to dispose of Doreen and gives evidence at trial against Dominic Quirk. It’s the deal he should have taken weeks ago when he had the chance. Is he there now? Why don’t you have a quick word, take instructions and we can strike while the iron is hot? Crowe wants to get the show back on the road as soon as possible. Take instructions and get back to me. I’m free Monday afternoon.’

  I had all the instructions I needed. ‘What’s wrong with today?’ I asked.

  Chapter 45

  As it happened, there was nothing wrong with today.

  I met Fiona on the corner of Chambers Street and George IV Bridge, not far from Edinburgh Sheriff Court and opposite the National Museum of Scotland. She declined an invitation to buy me lunch and soon we were shoogling our way upwards in a ludicrously ancient, wooden-lined elevator.

  Scotland’s senior law officer, the Lord Advocate resided on the first floor of the Crown Office building, it was about as down to earth as he ever came. His deputes, those who did his bidding, were situated on the floor above. That was where we alighted to find the door to the main open-plan office thrown wide and Cameron Crowe standing at a tall window, looking out at the rain in a room that smelled of despair. He turned when he heard us enter. ‘Come.’ He crooked a finger and we followed it to a glass-walled interview room, known colloquially as the ‘squash court’.

  ‘Here!’ He lifted a document from the desk and tossed it to me. It was folded in half vertically. I opened it. An indictment. Two accused: Dominic Quirk and Mark Starrs. Two charges: murder and an attempt to defeat the ends of justice. My client’s name was only on the latter.

  ‘I see you’ve changed your mind,’ I said.

  ‘Not yet,’ Crowe replied. ‘That’s a draft. When your client signs an affidavit blaming his co-accused, I’ll sign that indictment, keeping his name off the murder charge.’

  I lobbed the document onto the desk. ‘I’d prefer if you’d do a re-draft and put Mark Starrs on the murder charge too. I want the Crown to formally accept his plea of not guilty. I don’t want you finding some way to prosecute him for it later.’

  ‘Trusting aren’t you?’ Crowe said. ‘Okay, If my word isn’t good enough...’

  It wasn’t. ‘And I also want you to accept a plea of not guilty to the second charge.’

  ‘Not this again, Robbie,’ Fiona said. There were two chairs on our side of the desk that separated us from the AD. She pointed to one. ‘Sit.’ I sat. She joined me. Crowe remained standing, leaning against the edge of his desk. ‘Now let’s not go down this same old line again. Robbie, Cameron is offering to accept your client’s plea of not guilty to murder—’

  ‘Because he can’t prove it,’ I said.

  Fiona sighed.

  ‘If you like I’ll give it a try,’ Crowe said. ‘I’m only making this offer because the Lord Advocate wants Dominic Quirk behind bars. He’s made the Crown look stupid once, it’s not to happen again. Me? I’m not so pessimistic as some in this building that I can’t have both Quirk and your client convicted.’

  ‘That’s not going to be easy without your star witness,’ I said, not asking him to excuse the pun. ‘I take it that’s what’s really brought about your change of heart?’

  The normally ice cool features of the AD were showing signs of thawing. He wiped a bead of swea
t from his forehead under guise of sweeping back his hair.

  ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Clyve Cree has flip-flopped on his original statement?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Robbie?’ Fiona asked, at last showing some interest.

  Before I could speak, Crowe explained. ‘Cree doesn’t think it could have been Easter Saturday that he heard the conversation between Starrs and the deceased. Turns out he wasn’t in St Andrews that weekend after all.’

  ‘When did he hear it then?’ she asked.

  ‘Later,’ Crowe said.

  ‘How much later?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, ‘because the next day Dominic Quirk and Marks Starrs were both in custody. Whatever conversation Cree says he heard, it couldn’t have been between Doreen and anyone else because she was already dead.’

  ‘When was I going to be let in on this little development?’ Fiona asked.

  Crowe shifted slightly, crossed his feet at the ankles. ‘The new statement is in the secure email system somewhere. It was going to be disclosed in advance of the next preliminary hearing.’

  Fiona was puzzled. ‘So if it hasn’t been disclosed, how do you know about it?’ she asked me.

  I could tell Crowe wanted to know the answer to that as well. I was going to enjoy telling him. ‘Because I discovered last night that Clyve Cree works for Dominic’s dad.’

  Fiona was on her feet now. She was listening to me while staring straight ahead into the eyes of Cameron Crowe. ‘Am I hearing this correctly? Al Quirk provided a bought and paid for witness so he could save his son, and the Crown didn’t even bother to check him out?’ Crowe tried to speak, but Fiona wasn’t finished. ‘Think carefully before you answer, Cameron. You either did check Cree out, in which case you knew the potential for a miscarriage and did nothing about it, or else you just presumed he was a neutral witness in which case you’re incompetent. Which is it? Crooked or incompetent?’

  Some people go red with rage. Crowe was ashen. He pointed a talon at me. ‘I have absolutely no idea what this man is talking about,’ he said.

  ‘Incompetence, then,’ I said. ‘I thought Quirk was behind the surprise witness right from the start. He’s always had a reputation for match-fixing. I put it to him a while ago and he denied it, swore an oath. And then last night I was at his house and—’

  ‘You went to the home of your client’s co-accused? Was his lawyer present?’ Crowe asked.

  ‘No, and I didn’t go to see Dominic Quirk. I went to see his mother to try and have her talk sense into her husband before he got himself and others into a lot of trouble. While I was there, I happened to discover that Clyve Cree worked for the Quirk family as some kind of chauffeur/bodyguard. That’s when Al must have realised he’d better pull the plug on the whole idea. And that’s why Clyve-with-a-Y has suddenly remembered he was somewhere else on the night in question.’ Everyone else was standing so I stood too. ‘If this case goes to trial, you haven’t a hope in hell of convicting Mark Starrs of murder. Not after we’ve revealed how Quirk’s father tried to pervert the course of justice and the Crown were ready to stand back and let him. Why was that do you think? Anything to do with the fact that Honest Al and the Lord Justice Clerk are bosom buddies? How’s that going to look across the front page of the Daily Record.’ Point made, I resumed my seat.

  Crowe thought about it. ‘That’s quite a speech. You seem to be suggesting some kind of cover-up, all revealed by your little visit to the Quirk’s house last night.’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I don’t care how incompetent you’ve been or if Clyve disappears over the horizon in Al Quirk’s Bentley Flying Spur, my lips will be sealed. What’s more, you can have an affidavit from my client as discussed. All I ask is a formal finding of not guilty to both charges.’

  Crowe shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ From the green leather inlay of his desk top, Crowe lifted a bundle of papers and thumbed through them. After a while, he produced a police notebook, bent back the turquoise cover and turned to a page marked by a paper clip. He handed the notebook open to Fiona. ‘Clyve Cree’s new statement,’ he said.

  She read the first few lines and then looked at me over the top of it. ‘Robbie, this statement was given to the police ten days ago. She scanned the rest of the statement and handed it to me. ‘Though I don’t know why it’s taken this long to be disclosed.’

  ‘It might have been quicker if proceedings hadn’t been delayed because your client can’t get up for court in the morning. The fact is,’ Crowe said, looking at me, ‘that you had nothing to do with the witness’s change of statement. He obviously just gave it a lot of thought and realised he’d made a mistake. What is more, I don’t believe what you say about him working for Mr Quirk, but if your conspiracy theory is correct, why would he change his mind ten days before you say you uncovered the plot?’ He picked up the draft indictment. ‘I’ll meet you halfway,’ he said. ‘I’ll re-draft the indictment and put Starrs on both charges. If on or before the next hearing he presents me with an affidavit incriminating Dominic Quirk, I’ll accept his not guilty plea to the murder charge. After that, he can either plead to disposing of the body or go to trial and be convicted. That’s my final offer.’

  ‘You didn’t think of letting me in on your discovery?’ Fiona asked, as we juddered our way to the ground floor.

  ‘We had an agreement. You were going to try and find a link between Clyve Cree and Al Quirk. If I could make the connection in five minutes, what was stopping you?’

  We walked through the foyer onto Chambers Street, where traffic wardens scurried about trying to make their daily quota.

  ‘Pity Quirk and Starrs hadn’t murdered one of them,’ Fiona said, eyes on a warden who was standing by a bright red Audi soft-top, ready to pounce. ‘No jury would convict.’

  ‘Did you make any enquiries at all?’ I asked.

  ‘Look, if you’re wanting your pancake recipe back… actually, you’re not getting it back - it’s too bloody good.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’ve still five minutes left on that ticket. I think I’ll wait here for a couple more before I go over. It’s more fun if you let them build up hope before breaking their spirit.’

  ‘Even if Cree did withdraw his statement before I went round to Al Quirk’s house last night, it only happened because he knew I was onto him,’ I said.

  ‘Give it a break, Robbie. Whatever you did or didn’t do, Cree is out of the picture. We’re back to square one and this time we have to take Crowe’s offer. We can’t risk a murder trial. After all Starrs did admit to dumping the body and if you fly with the crows you get shot with them. I can easily see a jury convicting both men just to be sure they get the right one. And by the way, I did make some enquiries about Quirk and what’s-his-name and haven’t heard back from the person I delegated to the task. That person is taking a risk. I’m just pleased I can call them off now before Crowe discovers they’re nosing about in his case.’

  The traffic warden dragged his eyes from the digital face of the clock on his portable ticket-machine and started to punch some buttons on it.

  ‘He’s keen,’ Fiona said. She took a black and chrome key from her handbag. ‘Got to go. Tell Starrs to take the deal.’

  ‘Crowe will change his mind nearer to the trial date,’ I said.

  ‘Please don’t start all that again.’ Fiona squeezed the key and the indicator lights on the convertible blinked on and off. The traffic warden looked about. Fiona waved to him cheerily as she walked over to her car. ‘Crowe isn’t bluffing,’ she called over her shoulder to me. ‘He’ll take it all the way if you push him. Think what’s best for your client, and remember what they say – the Crown was sent to try us.’

  Chapter 46

  Friday night was now officially football night. Following a spell of reasonable weather, Malky’s five-a-side squad had grown into a seven-a-side squad and no longer played indoors. Instead the game had moved west to the LK Galaxy astro-turf pitches at Little Kerse
on the outskirts of Falkirk, a bright swathe of emerald against the silver and smoke of Grangemouth oil refinery.

  Malky arrived late, which meant that the teams were already picked by the time the soles of his Adidas Sambas hit artificial turf.

  ‘I’ve got you have I?’ he said, managing to conceal his enthusiasm, and, having appointed himself captain, allocated us other six with our positions in a two, three, one, formation; Malky being the one up front. I was told to stay in the middle, break up the play and not to ‘try any fancy stuff’.

  When talking football tactics with my brother it was better just to smile and nod, but there was no way I was donning shorts and dragging my excess calories down the M9 on a Friday night just to ‘break up play’; by which Malky really meant, you’re hopeless, so see if you can run around and bump into a few of the opposing team and maybe they’ll lose possession. Trying fancy stuff was precisely why I was there and at six a piece, with seconds remaining, a mazy run by me with an attempt at a Diego Maradona spin, nearly paid off. Actually, it did pay off, but, not for my team. Mid-spin, heading sort of goal-wards, I lost control, and the opposing full-back sent a long ball forward that was collected by his striker and steered into the net for the winner. According to Malky, the loss was all my fault, even though our keeper had been busy lighting up a premature post-match cigarette when ball had hit net. My brother was still in the huff and not talking to me after, showered and dressed, we made our way to the car park.

  ‘Takes it seriously,’ Paul Sharp, scorer of the winning goal, said to me as we threw our holdalls into his car and climbed in after them. ‘Wouldn’t like to have seen him back in the day after an Old Firm loss. If I’d known I was going to cause such acrimony in the Munro household, I would have blasted my shot wide.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Like you usually do.’

  Paul laughed. He was in a good mood and not just because he’d scored the winner. The change of statement by Clyve Cree had set in motion a chain of events. Pony-tailed Nic Hart had been reined in and Paul instructed again given that Dominic Quirk had little option than to revert to his original defence, one that Paul had already meticulously prepared.